Speaking of cold, dead digestive tracts: A few years ago, I got terribly ill while on vacation. Loss of appetite, waves of tremendous abdominal cramps, and vomiting. My intestines had plugged up and it took some intervention to get them moving again.

I put some of the blame on a sushi lunch I ate that day. I'd eaten sushi often before, but this restaurant used a lot more seaweed in the dishes than I was accustomed to. Even as I was eating, I had second thoughts about whether what I was putting into my mouth was actually edible. But I figured it seemed strange to me only because that Japanese restaurant was more authentic than the Americanized sushi places where I usually dined.

Now I wonder whether that seaweed would be edible to Japanese guts, but truly was inedible to mine.

Some with weaker constitutions would flinch, but I'd give you a mod point if I had any at the moment. As an Alaska'n fisherman, let me tell you that North Pacific bull kelp will rip you up pretty good, but I mix mine with jelly fish for that extra zing! Prepare your bull kelp and brown snot looking jelly fish with vinegar and high voltage, about 30kV or so should do the trick - just enough to evaporate it within a minute. Any longer than that and it starts to get a funny after taste.. Once it has cooled, sprinkle it on smoked tuna or sockeye salmon. Wash it down with orange Jolt and Bacardi 151 - of course, you should only do this on shore at the local tavern. Feel free to experiment with other beverages suitable to your taste if you want to whimp out.

Bacteria (helicobacter pylorii, more specifically) are related to a lot of ulcer-induced stomach cancer. As the bacteria they talk about live in the intestines (that's what gut means) I don't think they have much to do with it. I may be mistaken, though.

Enzymes aren't the same as gut bacteria--our body actually produces them. I've been told that whether a person produces a given enzyme (like lactase) partly depends on their habits (if they continue drinking milk throughout their lives), but I believe there's also a strong genetic component.

Genes don't transfer from bacteria to mammals. Genes transfer between bacteria, via exchange of plasmids. (Which is one reason why antibiotic resistance spreads so fast.) But your cells don't have the mechansims to acquire such a plasmid, and wouldn't know what to do with it. You don't even have the regulating proteins or the ribosome to deal with a _circular_ DNA strand, and one outside the nucleus at that.

At this point someone will probably have the knee-jerk reaction to explain how viruses can account for horizontal gene transfer, 'cause they read that notion at some point and it sounded so smart. Not so fast. Viruses are quite specialized in what they attach to. They depend on very specific nucleotid sequences, which is why you can have a virus that attacks your upper respiratory tract, but can't affect your lungs, or viceversa. Viruses that prey on bacteria, the so called "phages", have very specialized capsids and mechanisms to inject themselves into a bacterium, and are even more specialized in what they can attach to. Which is why for example you can spray meat with a phage which destroys Lysteria, but won't destroy your intestinal flora. A virus that's suited to infect both a bacterium _and_ your gut lining and transfer genes from one to the other, is almost an impossibility, and at any rate to the best of my knowledge none was ever identified.

I would not cling to that view too strongly - there's some circumstantial evidence that genes can be transfered between unrelated species. Don't ask me to explain it - it's not understood as yet. But as an example you could Google, some GMO genes are being found in plant and insect species and it looks like the result of an unknown transfer process. It may be that mutations are not entirely random, but can be based on exposure (such as diet).

I would say it's even less than growing up with. Who here remembers the story about gut bacteria in fat people being different and that it could process fat/carbs more efficiently (and extracting all the calorie value from it) and futhermore that the bacteria % could change in a span of 16 hours?

Meh, more of their liking of it vs westerners of not liking it is more due to the addictive substance in the seaweed. It's in miso soup and green tea. It's name is glutamatic acid. Funny to see a Japanese person travel outside of Japan and have none of them above.

There are many similar cases to this, such as an African tribe that eats rotten neat as a delicacy. It is probably Lamarckian, not Darwninian, in origin. A mother transfers her ability to eat to her offspring in the womb and through breastfeeding. Over time, an ability to eat things like rotten meat can build up, but it would be hard for someone like us to walk in and build up that ability from scratch. Having bacteria in your intestines is not genetic, so that doesn't leave many alternatives.

Newborns don't have the enzymes (supposedly) to break down meat either, but we in the western world seem to do fine with that. I suspect this is more like you're thinking, a habitual thing that your body adapts to based on your other dietary intakes.

I thought that everyone started out with pretty much zero gut bacteria and acquire them based on what they eat. (And sometimes people lose all their gut bacteria from various medical treatments and have to work to restore them.)

So the japanese end up with the bacteria/enzymes do digest sushi because... they eat a lot of sushi. Presumably anyone else could develop a colony of such bacteria/enzymes by also eating a lot of sushi?

That would mean the division isn't whether you're Japanese or American or something else. It's just whether or not you eat a lot of sushi.

Yes, it's like when you travel to another country. You could eat some of the local food and fall sick (maybe), but once your guts are accustomed to it, you'll get better at it. TFA is simply another story in which a group of scientists have confirmed things we already know by experience.

No, most scientific papers are the scientific method applied to hunches (well, theories) to test a behaviour. Most of the time, the test fails to contradict the theory. Occasionally, it demonstrates a flaw in the theory and then you get something interesting. Experimental results that disagree with the theory are the most exciting thing to happen in science. Experimental results that reinforce a theory are a pretty dull everyday occurrence.

Some of your gut microflora and fauna comes from your mom during the birthing process, others from breastfeeding and some from what you eat on a regular basis. This is interesting because the genes are transferred supposedly from the bugs living on seaweed to the bugs living in your gut, letting the same species of gut bugs to develop an ability to digest seaweed better.

I'm not a biologist nor in any sense of the word am I qualified to answer your question. However, I feel that I might be able to lend some perspective on that matter that might otherwise be useful in gaining a firmer level of comprehension on the issue at hand.

Onto the question regarding the transfer of some of the bacteria from mother to child I'm almost certain that someone may be able to shed some light on this puzzle.

As noted earlier, I'm almost nearly certain that I am in no way shape or form the person who could assist in this conundrum.

I was out drinking with someone of Russian descent. Like, moved to the US from Russia. We are of roughly equal size. 2 shots, and he was pretty much lit. 8 shots, and I could barely feel it. They were straight shots, they were in mixed drinks. He had two single mixed drinks. I had 4 doubles. The proof was about equal across all the drinks.

Then again, I'm a European mutt, with German, Irish, and French genes. I've always noti

Not if they're giving birth with a competent doctor/midwife/whoever. A catheter and proper procedure keeps all that off the baby. I have two kids, so I've seen it happen. Next time try going to a hospital instead of a biker bar.

if you artificially make the birthing process clean, you are not adequately inoculating your baby's digestive tract with the mother's gut flora

perhaps setting the kid up for opportunistic infection in the first days of life, inadequate digestion, malformed immune system (allergies), etc.

so you reacted to the ugliness of getting shat upon by your mother at birth, but your delicate sensibilities are not the issue: for millions of years, getting shit on at birth has meant we evolved with the timing of the introduction of the full spectrum of the mother's gut bacteria at time of birth. meaning a delay in that timing could be unhealthy for normal immune function, normal digestion function, etc.

we talk about how antiseptic living has increased allergies and other diseases. a clean birthing room might be a part of that constellation of problems. perhaps in the future, healthy child birth will consist of the doctor shoving his finger up the mother's ass and sticking it in the newborn's mouth to ensure full spectrum inoculation. this may sound disgusting to you, but it may be the healthiest thing you can do for a newborn's normal development

Not necessarily, different people attract different bacteria; just look at why people smell differently based on what bacteria they have growing on them.
Similarly something in the Japanese gut could be encouraging the growth of this specific bacteria...
Just speculation, article was lacking about causes.

They don't eat a lot of sushi, but the traditional Japanese diet consists of rice, fish, and sea vegetables. Being a relatively small island nation with horrible terrain for farming, it has a much higher ratio of fishable coast to farm land than most other countries (even somewhere like the UK). The enzymes that they found are not for digesting sushi, they are for digesting seaweed, which is an ingredient in sushi, but also in a lot of other Japanese food.

Here's one American who loves sushi and sashimi. Except ikura (salmon eggs). Never cared for those. Seems like bait to me. The only other Japanese food I would not choose to eat again is natto.
Of course, I don't think they're singling out Americans, just non-seaweed eaters in general.

Perhaps North American gut bacteria are more efficient at digesting high fructose corn syrup

That was an attempt at humour, but you may be at least partially right... I'm a European that feels horribly sick if he consumes too much HFCS (one bottle of US produced Coca Cola will do it), whereas I can chow down on basic Fructose and Sucrose all day long with no ill effects (other than getting fat and having rotten teeth). HFCS just makes me queasy. I don't really think it's specifically to do with the ability to digest it, but something in the manner of processing/tolerance is definitely different.

Well, I'll be; and here I thought my brief illness on an Okinawan beach resulted from my consuming budweiser and salty dogs all night and then passing out on the beach - and failing to wake up when the sun came up.

It wasn't alcohol, heat stroke, or the incandescent sunburn - it was the seaweed from that piece of sushi I had the day before!

I have been historically known in my house as the one who drinks more milk than the rest of the family combined, and yet after 21 years of my habits suddenly my gut decided to STOP producing the enzyme that digests milk products.
So no, the results of this study are not obvious.

The FTA claims that the gut bacteria were producing an enzyme normally produced by aquatic organisms, which would mean that a gene was transferred into the gut bacteria, which then continued to produce them, perhaps being passed down from mothers to kid in utero. That's different from acquiring new microflora from your food, and would mean that eating a lot of seaweed, by itself, is unlikely to produce this result in an individual.

The real story behind this article is the 'lateral gene transfer between strictly aquatic bacteria and human intestinal bacteria'.This article makes it seem like 'Japanese Guts Are Made For Sushi' is the story. But anyone who is exposed to these bacteria and has a 'sushi' diet will have these enzymes in their gut.

eating a lot of seaweed, by itself, is unlikely to produce this result in an individual.

There was a story here a while ago which said you swap something like 50 species whenever you kiss someone, so here's your excuse to make out with a cute Japanese girl, provided she's cool with geeky gaijin.

Different parts of the world evolved different strains of bacteria. Can I collect my research grant now.

Vietnamese people who immigrate to Australia often have trouble with Australian food until they get used to it (I.E. develop the bacteria to help digest it). Each part of the would would have developed different bacteria in the digestive system.

This is why, more often then not when one travels to SE Asia one's stool is more regular (about 1 hour after you eat) and rarely solid. YMMV of course, peopl

Just what we need, more "Japanese are unique" idiocy to justify racism and discrimination in Japan. So far we've heard that "Japanese intestines are longer [yahoo.com], so Japanese can't eat foreign beef", "Japanese brains are unique [vt.edu], so only Japanese people can speak the Japanese language." and so on, all of which are supported by pseudo-scientific studies such as this one.

This sort of incomplete research just feeds the view of racial uniqueness (and superiority) among Japanese and justifies their racism and discrimination against others.

My hunch is that this is an economic strategy. Japan has a history of doing stuff like this before - this is not strictly an example about genetic superiority - but they have claimed that Japanese snow has a unique texture, and therefore only Japanese-manufactured skis are suitable for their ski resorts.

A lot of seaweed gets exported from China and Korea. This may be to stem the import of foreign seaweed.

Huh, you'd think the fluency of the native born non Japanese (mostly Koreans I believe), would kind of kill the second theory. Unless of course the claim is gaijins can communicate in the language but they can't speak the language, or some equally bizzare hair splitting.

My girlfriend's aunt (who is a nurse in Japan) said that Japanese have a longer colon that evolved from their high fiber diets. Sounded logical to me (someone with no medical experience). They also have no issues eating beef or pork, they just don't eat it nearly as much as us Americans.

On the other hand, I think Japanese taste buds have devolved... they will put anything in their mouth.

From my experience in Japan, the 'natives' love it when I try and speak Japanese when communicating. I've never s

Height comes largely from nutrition and health as a child.Many Ethiopians and Kenyans run to school their whole lives before competing, and they have different hydration strategies (they run far less than we do during long distance races and they don't overeat to store energy for races) and they tend to start their training with much more minimalistic shoes.Americans are much more sedentary, it's likely not genetic, though it'll be interesting what we find with all the epigenetic stuff I've been hearing abo

There is also Sci-Fi animated movie where Japan is separated from other world by some power shield. Same seclusions motives from 19th century.

A bit off topic but I believe the movie you are referring to is: Vexille [wikipedia.org] released in 2007. There are probably others with the same theme but this came to mind since it is a recent Anime.

One of them was a baby, according to this article [discovermagazine.com]:

For now, it's not clear how long these marine genes have been living inside the bowels of the Japanese. People might only gain the genes after eating lots and lots of sushi but Hehemann has some evidence that they could be passed down from parent to child. One of the people he studied was an unweaned baby girl, who had clearly never eaten a mouthful of sushi in her life. And yet, her gut bacteria had a porphyranase gene, just as her mother's did. We already

TFA is not clear whether non-Japanese really cannot break down seaweed at all.In Japan it is popular to buy yogurt with live culture, for example there is Meiji's LB51 (lacto bacillus 51) yogurt supposedly good for your gut.Might be cool if a yogurt with this organism is made.Of course if you could just eat non-sterile seaweed maybe it would make a culture for you in your gut.. anybody know about edible seaweeds that would have this?I've had seaweed salad and maybe that would have it.Also the American gut is supposedly longer does that balance not having the enzyme at all?

Let's recall that tribes that life off hunting have more lactose intolerant people that those that practice livestock breeding, that certain northern tribes of Chukchas and Eskimo doesn't have ensimes to get rid of alcohol so they become alcoholics easily and so on and so on.

I am a North American. I was born here, so were my parents and my grandparents. Most of my great-grandparents were also born here although one set did come over from Germany, so they were actually European.

If you were going to be pedantic, maybe you should have suggested they use the term 'Caucasian'

So Japanese people have a seaweed digesting bacterium in their guts. So sushi restaurants could offer visiting westerners a small culture of this bacterium, and they would be set up to digest the seaweed. Before you go "Ewww, bacteria!", this is just what is being offered commercially as "pro-biotic yogurt". You would probably need a top-up on every visit to Japan, because the bacterium would probably die out without a regular supply of seaweed.

I used to have a girlfriend who worked at a Sushi Bar & Japanese steak house back when I was in college, so she'd bring some home every once in a while. I've had all sorts, and can't remember a single issue. I think my favorites were barbecued eel, salmon (raw), tuna and also plum mint, but I can't seem to find that one anywhere.

Czjzek's team compared the microbial genomes of 13 Japanese people with those of 18 North Americans. Five of the Japanese subjects harbored the enzyme, but among the North Americans, "we didn't find a single one," says Czjzek, whose team reports its findings tomorrow in Nature.

A large proportion suffer lactose intolerance which means milk and yoghurts are out though I believe they can still eat some cheeses where the lactose has been converted into something else. If anyone has ever wondered why you never see dairy food in chinese or japanese restaurants - theres your answer.

Anyway , most veg if cooked long enough can be digested by the human gut so these enzymes only give them an advantage if they eat it partially cooked or raw.

Yep - I've had alligator tail sushi before - as well as having seen teriyaki chicken sushi on the menu at one place I've been to. I do tend to enjoy more traditionally simple ones though, and I'm a born and bred redneck (live in the south - nearest business is a 20 mile drive, in the fall I go deer hunting like I've done since I was a kid).

I'm American (my heritage is completely Italian) and I love Sushi, not all of it, but most of it. IMO anyone who dosn't really like it simply hasn't been properly introduced. In general I don't really like fish unless it's fried but I love sushi.

Not having the enzymes won't make any difference to your enjoyment of the dish, it will just mean that the seaweed won't be broken down for digestion. It will simply pass through your system like fibre. You can enjoy it, you just won't get any nutrition from it. I'm not really surprised by this discovery; it explains why I feel hungry about an hour after eating sushi.

This is one thing I always hate to hear. anyone who doesn't really like it simply hasn't been properly introduced. I've know a few Gay men that make the suggestion about certain sexual situations...

So let me be clear, you're wrong...some things just rub people the wrong way. It's not how you were introduced to it...we are honestly that different from each other. I hate Sushi and it makes me want to throw up just looking at it.